Six of Pentacles

The Six of Pentacles was the card I pulled today. In the Goddess Tarot, the pentacles are the “Path of Lakshmi” and all the cards feature her. The pentacle itself features a lotus on the golden coin rather than a pentacle star.

The Six of Pentacles is a card of having/not having, of the experience of and duality of those things. For me, this is evident in my worry about will I or won’t I get into nursing school. I keep thinking about this and sort of… freaking out, a little. Even though I can make it if I don’t, and try again, I am too proud. I have experienced much having in my life but not as much… not having. It’s something to think about. Do I appreciate what I have? Or am I only worried about what I lack?

New Tarot Deck

After a long time of wanting it, I finally bought the Goddess Tarot Deck. It’s a lovely deck that depicts a different goddess figure for each of the major arcana, and then follows the traditional suits for the minor arcana. A friend of mine has this deck and I’ve read from hers a few times — it’s lovely, and I am so happy to finally have my own.

I haven’t done any daily draws with it yet as I only bought it yesterday and I need to cleanse it. So into the window it goes! A few days and nights of sun and moonlight should fix it right up. Then I will start pulling my daily draws from it so I can familiarize myself with the cards. Very excited!

p.s. lessons are going well. yesterday’s was taking care of yourself & affirmations, as well as the making of bath salts and some ritual oils. very productive.

Tarot Draw: 8 of Wands

Eight of Wands (R) – You tend to get carried away with new ideas. Try not to loose sight of your perspective or your self-confidence now. Take any sudden infatuations or new ideas in stride and control your emotions. Your own apprehension can create insecure feelings and cause you to procrastinate. Act swiftly and communicate directly. Jealousy arises from uncertainty and confusion – in both your own feelings and the feelings of others. Quarreling solves nothing and any force or pressure could ruin all your plans. When things are not “working for you” – take the time to reevaluate your situation. Know and trust that a slight adjustment can and will change everything.

Here are the problems of extremes – a major temptation is to move too fast. To try is like letting a rubberband be drawn tighter as the lead end move on – eventually the tail end must be let loose and will spring forward to join the lead end in one great snap to make up for the lost time. The backlash can hurt.

Questions to Answer: What are you rushing into? A relationship? A new direction for growth? A belief or philosophy? What are you being “carried away” by or overwhelmed with? What do you feel the urge to move on quickly? What do you need to tell others about?

Getting carried away with new ideas? Story of my life. I was just lamenting recently with a good friend that I have all these things I always want to do. Sometimes I get partway through something before I just don’t finish — I often feel like things just don’t hold my attention, or that I for some reason am simply no longer interested in them. Part of that may be Attention Deficit, which I have & regularly do not take medications for, but I hesitate to say that that’s the only reason. I do need to learn to properly invest myself in things I do.

Don’t Give Away Your Power

I spoke with my sister a few days ago about this topic, so I figured I would blog about it, too. Whenever we are having our conversations, sometimes it just seems like a good moment to mention something, and yesterday, this was it! The gist of it is that you have the power to choose how you feel. When you allow people or situations to control how you act or feel, that’s giving away your power. That’s not to say that we have to be friends with people we don’t like, but when we alter our behaviour so we can avoid them, or so on… that’s giving away our power. Don’t give away your power! Stay true to yourself & your path! Don’t alter your path for other people. Those you are supposed to be with, their paths with converge with yours.

CharmingPixieFlora on youtube has done some videos on this topic… here is one, and here is part II of the same. I highly recommend watching them!

How to Inscribe a Protective Pentagram in the Air

From my handout for this coming week’s lesson on house and object cleansing and blessing, a word or two about how to inscribe a protective Pentagram in the Air for protection against malevolent energy…:

1. Stand with feet apart shoulder’s distance.
2. Fold pinky and ring finger of right hand down, with thumb covering them. Point with middle and index finger together.
3. Point fingers outward to inscribe Pentagram with arm outstretched whole time. Starting position in front of left hip
4. Bring pointing hand up so it’s level with your forehead
5. Down to right hip
6. Left shoulder
7. Right shoulder
8. Left hip

This week’s handout includes a lot of spells, charms, and directions as far as how to cleanse your home, what to use, and various methods are concerned. I’m using this week to talk also about hearth deities and the magickal/ritual practice of keeping a healthy, clean, and tranquil home.

The Earth Path

I’m finally getting around to reading Starhawk’s The Earth Path. I started this book a while ago and put it down for whatever reason — or I read little bits here and there but did not read much of it. Today, I finished another book I was reading, and I finished something else I needed to get done, so I came back around to The Earth Path and picked it up.

Bringing our lives into alignment with the Earth should not become a burdensome, guilt-filled project, where we are constantly in an unshriven state of eco-sin.

At the end of this chapter (3), she talks about about sacred intention. What, she asks, is your sacred intention? What is sacred to you? What do you cherish? There is a small written meditation with the aim of finding the answer.

For me, I think the answer is… the Earth. And within that answer, the health of all things. What do I need to help me serve my intention of creating a world that cherishes the Earth and the health of all things in it? Well… I’m not sure. More meditation seems like a good place to start answering that question.

Her written instructions for grounding include the Tree of Life meditation, which I have found to be invaluable. She mentions making sure your breathing is deep, and she talks about daily practice — something I still need to work on. Why is it that I always mean to do things and then I let them go by?

Protection Witch Bottle

For our lesson this week, we’re going to be covering witch bottles/bottle spells. Because I am teaching my sister — and my friend, S, too — basic and very self-oriented magicks, like protections and so on, my plan for this lesson is to create a protection witch bottle. Usually a “witch bottle” means a protective spell, while a “bottle spell” refers to any other kind of spell made using a bottle.

Historically witch bottles have been used in Europe to protect from witches, the evil eye, or those with foul intent. Witch bottles have been found that date back to the 1600s. “Some of the ancient witch bottles found sealed by archaeologists in England have been opened and all of them that still contained liquids tested positive for the presence of urine,” writes Cat Yronwode. In Latin America, they have been used as luck charms or amulets as well.

Bottle spells come in all kinds of sizes and shapes — for our lesson, we’re going to be using mason jars — and are in use by many kinds of people. For example, there is a shop here in my city that sells tiny lucky patron saint bottle charms from Latin America. They can be filled with a variety of things, depending on the person’s intent for the spell.

For our purpose, we’re going to use pins, needles, or whatever other sharp objects we can come up with, protective herbs, a piece of hair, and urine. Things like urine, blood, and semen are common ingredients in folk magic things. Urine is used by animals to mark their territory. I think also that part of the reason for using bodily fluids is that these materials are unique to each individual, and are therefore the best ingredient to use. Urine often appears in spells to break jinxes or in love spells to tie someone to only one other person.

Now that that’s out of the way — we’ll talk about how we’re going to make them. To start with, I’m going to have nails, pins, and some protective herbs on hand for the lesson.

Herbs we will use:

• sage – protective from all things
• hyssop – cleansing and protective
• red pepper – to keep the evil away
• salt – purification and protection
• rosemary – to protect the individual
• camphor – to protect from disease

We’re going to put the sharp objects in first, focusing on their use for trapping up evil and keeping evil away. The protective herbs will be added while discussing their qualities, and the hair and urine while focusing on the self and making it clear who is being protected. When we’re finished, the bottles will be buried on the property where we live. In my sister’s case, she lives in an apartment building, however there are little strips of dirt along the parking lot — we will bury it in the one closest to her apartment.

source: Cat Yronwode’s Hoodoo in Theory & Practice.

An Underwhelming Experience

My sister, S, and I all went to the Beltane ritual last night. I have to say we were all… underwhelmed. The person officiating the ritual did silent quarters when casting the circle, which is fine, but her lack of confidence and unprepared manner made it a very odd feeling ritual. It was very short and somewhat rushed. There was no mention of the Goddess really the… entire time we were there. There wasn’t much talking about spirituality at all, in fact! I had been expecting a sort of run-down on “this is Beltane, what it is, and why we are celebrating”, I guess, but that was not a part of this ritual.

A note, now, on elitism in the Pagan community, which my friend M has blogged about recently. Because I had not met up with other pagans prior to this ritual, I had not really had to worry about experiencing this elitism offline. However, when we showed up to this group/ritual — well, one woman made it a point to mention that she was going to another city’s longer Beltane celebration, where they would have “THE Ritual! with Real Sex!!” The manner in which she said this made it pretty clear that she was looking to shock us. After the ritual, a man came to us and was quite patronizing and almost-rude in the guise of being helpful. It was a very holier-than-thou attitude, that sort of, “I’m testing to see how Fluffy or Serious you are” business. Apparently we caught this group at a bad time, someone mentioned, and there were some people who weren’t in attendance. Either way, I don’t know. I am not really interested in meeting with them again. The fact that it’s a 45 minute drive doesn’t help, either!

This experience cements in my mind the idea that I want to find a Dianic or a women’s only group. I don’t think that will happen until I move out of this State! So, for now, I’m content with being solitary.

Blessed Beltane!

Blessed Beltane!

Tonight I celebrate with my first non-solitary ritual! Enjoy this beautiful day of passion~